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Pandemic influenza
Pandemic influenza is something that happens at regular intervals, we are overdue for a pandemic and have been for a number of years (the last one was 1968, before that there was one in 1957 and one in 1918). Whether the current swine 'flu is what becomes a pandemic remains to be seen - we still haven't got enough evidence yet. It might be the one, or it might be some other strain of avian or swine or other 'flu in a number of years time.
It's quite difficult to predict exactly what the effects of a pandemic will be. There are places on the internet where people are talking about stockpiling enough to isolate themselves from the world for six months or so as an appropriate pandemic-preparedness strategy. I don't think the effects will be so severe as to cause a breakdown of law and order or that the appropriate response is to isolate onself for six months or that the cost/benefit analysis of preparing to have six months worth of stuff stockpiled works in one's favour.
A lot of what's out on the internet about pandemic preparedness is premised on the idea that people don't live alone and this is not particularly useful for me and in general isn't very good as there are a relatively high propotion of people living alone than there would have been in previous pandemics. So what I'm going to talk about here is pandemic preparedness for those of us who live alone - specifically how it's different from that which applies to people who don't live alone.
Firstly, it's likely that in a pandemic there will be fewer public gatherings and people will be less willing to socialise in person due to the risk of catching 'flu/being ill/caring for others. There may be restrictions imposed on public gatherings, but I would consider it more likely that people will be choosing to stay at home rather than being forced into doing so. Given this, it's useful to think about what stuff you can do at home for entertainment - what hobbies do you have? do you have books to read? personal projects to work on? what else do you enjoy doing that you don't normally have time for? have you got the materials and resources to hand? how can you maintain contact with friends? - telephone? internet?
Secondly, it's probably safest to assume that you will catch the influenza and make preparations for this happening. How many people will get ill will vary, but could easily be 50% of the population over the life of the pandemic. Unlike normal seasonal influenza, young healthy adults are as at risk from it as elderly people, young children and people who would normally be more suspectible to influenza. [Depending on the strain of influenza we get, healthy elderly people may have some level of immunity to it, if a similar strain was about when they were much younger].
If you get pandemic influenza you are going to be really rather unpleasantly ill for about a week. And this is what is being described as 'mild' 'flu. It's quite possible (even likely) that you won't be able to get out of bed for that period of time. It's also quite likely that the people you might otherwise rely on to help you out will be ill themselves/caring for others who are ill/unable to travel to you. As a medium term/long term measure think about your local support network - who is there who could help you? What kind of help would they be willing to offer? [I know I could get local people to deliver medicine and food to me, I couldn't get them to provide physical care]. Although the government would have to pick childish terminology; "'flu friends", the principle is utterly sound. Within the country there are many more single person households and many people who live some distance away from their family, given the demographic shift there has been since the late '60s. Making local connections and ascertaining what help people are willing to offer is a good thing to do now ish - both in terms of pandemic 'flu planning and in case of other events happening where having a local person able to help a little would make life easier (even if more substantial help would have to wait on people from further away coming to you). If you have influenza it's unlikely you'd be capable of collecting your own medicines and even if you are, you risk infecting others during your trip.
I consider it sensible (for me) to plan for not having anyone about and able to provide personal care for me, should I be ill, but to expect that local people could bring me medicine and post it through the letter box and bring me stuff like milk and yoghurts and bread. For this reason, I've planned to have a sufficient supply of food/medication/toiletries/cleaning products/other stuff to not need to leave the house for about two weeks. For me this isn't all that out of the ordinary - I invariably have food cupboards containing tinned food/packets of rice/pasta etc and I normally buy toiletries and such like in bulk so I would nearly always have more than two weeks worth of stuff about. I've also thought about ways of moving stuff into my bedroom, so that I can reach what I need from bed. One of the biggest dangers of 'flu is from dehydration - either from sweating due to fever or diarrohea. I've bought a couple of non-spill toddler cups as it's possible to drink from them lying down without spilling water everywhere. I have plenty of salt and sugar to make up oral rehydration solution. Something I plan to do is play about with ways of flavouring water/ORS to make it more interesting to drink. I also intend to draw up a medication chart to record what I've taken and when I've taken it. Influenza will have cognitive effects and I believe having an easy to complete chart will help me make sure I don't overdose on anything - it's something I consider worthwhile trying, though I accept it might not work. I'm thinking it's probably wise, if you've got 'flu to maintain some sort of daily contact with someone else, so that if you get worse and don't realise how ill you are, hopefully the person you're talking to regularly will recognise the difference and can call for medical help for you. A telephone in your bedroom is a good move.
The other point that's important to bear in mind about 'flu, is that while the acute phase of the illness lasts about a week, full recovery is likely to take about a month. Recovery will be quite slow and you will be fatigued for a while. At this stage having easy to prepare food on hand will be very important as it's now that you need to eat to rebuild your strength. It's also important to have food about you consider 'comfort food' and to eat little and often. It's difficult to know what the situation will be like, but it's probably going to be important that recovering people don't rush back to work immediately.
Once you've thought about yourself, consider family members and friends - who is there you would be offering to care for if they were ill? If you're planning on having someone else look after you, if you're ill, how would you get to their home once you're unwell? [Bear in mind that travel restrictions are possible and it's possible these people would be ill at the same time as you] Are there local people you'd be offering to help out with fetching medicine and shopping? If you're likely to be caring for someone who lives some distance away from you, do you have arrangements with your employer to work from home? to work flexi time? to take unpaid leave at short notice?
Also consider your stance on masks/gloves/hand hygiene. If you're going to wear surgical masks, you need to wear them properly, which means replacing them when they get damp - get a big boxful and then read some instructions on how to use them. I'm basically of the opinion that as they don't protect against particle transmission they're not overly helpful and it's bad science to wear them [possibly except in so far as seeing strangers wearing face masks encourages social distancing]. Unless we reach a stage where there is a risk of violence for not wearing them, I am not intending to go about the streets in a surgical mask. If I get involved in treating someone who isn't a family member, I will insist on being supplied with proper FFP3 respirators and disposible gowns etc. Currently, I tend towards thinking that if I'm caring for a family member I'm going to get ill eventually anyway, so I might as well just keep going with the caring, get ill and hope that by the time I'm ill, they've sufficiently recovered to look after me.
If your hands are dirty soap and water is better at cleaning them than alcohol based hand gel.
The beginning of a pandemic is probably going to be a good time to get ill, when there are still lots of hospital beds available and medical staff haven't been exhausted by months of caring for influenza patients. If you're ill at the beginning (and ill enough to require hospital admission), you're going to get very good care and much better care than will be available in the middle of the pandemic.
It's quite difficult to predict exactly what the effects of a pandemic will be. There are places on the internet where people are talking about stockpiling enough to isolate themselves from the world for six months or so as an appropriate pandemic-preparedness strategy. I don't think the effects will be so severe as to cause a breakdown of law and order or that the appropriate response is to isolate onself for six months or that the cost/benefit analysis of preparing to have six months worth of stuff stockpiled works in one's favour.
A lot of what's out on the internet about pandemic preparedness is premised on the idea that people don't live alone and this is not particularly useful for me and in general isn't very good as there are a relatively high propotion of people living alone than there would have been in previous pandemics. So what I'm going to talk about here is pandemic preparedness for those of us who live alone - specifically how it's different from that which applies to people who don't live alone.
Firstly, it's likely that in a pandemic there will be fewer public gatherings and people will be less willing to socialise in person due to the risk of catching 'flu/being ill/caring for others. There may be restrictions imposed on public gatherings, but I would consider it more likely that people will be choosing to stay at home rather than being forced into doing so. Given this, it's useful to think about what stuff you can do at home for entertainment - what hobbies do you have? do you have books to read? personal projects to work on? what else do you enjoy doing that you don't normally have time for? have you got the materials and resources to hand? how can you maintain contact with friends? - telephone? internet?
Secondly, it's probably safest to assume that you will catch the influenza and make preparations for this happening. How many people will get ill will vary, but could easily be 50% of the population over the life of the pandemic. Unlike normal seasonal influenza, young healthy adults are as at risk from it as elderly people, young children and people who would normally be more suspectible to influenza. [Depending on the strain of influenza we get, healthy elderly people may have some level of immunity to it, if a similar strain was about when they were much younger].
If you get pandemic influenza you are going to be really rather unpleasantly ill for about a week. And this is what is being described as 'mild' 'flu. It's quite possible (even likely) that you won't be able to get out of bed for that period of time. It's also quite likely that the people you might otherwise rely on to help you out will be ill themselves/caring for others who are ill/unable to travel to you. As a medium term/long term measure think about your local support network - who is there who could help you? What kind of help would they be willing to offer? [I know I could get local people to deliver medicine and food to me, I couldn't get them to provide physical care]. Although the government would have to pick childish terminology; "'flu friends", the principle is utterly sound. Within the country there are many more single person households and many people who live some distance away from their family, given the demographic shift there has been since the late '60s. Making local connections and ascertaining what help people are willing to offer is a good thing to do now ish - both in terms of pandemic 'flu planning and in case of other events happening where having a local person able to help a little would make life easier (even if more substantial help would have to wait on people from further away coming to you). If you have influenza it's unlikely you'd be capable of collecting your own medicines and even if you are, you risk infecting others during your trip.
I consider it sensible (for me) to plan for not having anyone about and able to provide personal care for me, should I be ill, but to expect that local people could bring me medicine and post it through the letter box and bring me stuff like milk and yoghurts and bread. For this reason, I've planned to have a sufficient supply of food/medication/toiletries/cleaning products/other stuff to not need to leave the house for about two weeks. For me this isn't all that out of the ordinary - I invariably have food cupboards containing tinned food/packets of rice/pasta etc and I normally buy toiletries and such like in bulk so I would nearly always have more than two weeks worth of stuff about. I've also thought about ways of moving stuff into my bedroom, so that I can reach what I need from bed. One of the biggest dangers of 'flu is from dehydration - either from sweating due to fever or diarrohea. I've bought a couple of non-spill toddler cups as it's possible to drink from them lying down without spilling water everywhere. I have plenty of salt and sugar to make up oral rehydration solution. Something I plan to do is play about with ways of flavouring water/ORS to make it more interesting to drink. I also intend to draw up a medication chart to record what I've taken and when I've taken it. Influenza will have cognitive effects and I believe having an easy to complete chart will help me make sure I don't overdose on anything - it's something I consider worthwhile trying, though I accept it might not work. I'm thinking it's probably wise, if you've got 'flu to maintain some sort of daily contact with someone else, so that if you get worse and don't realise how ill you are, hopefully the person you're talking to regularly will recognise the difference and can call for medical help for you. A telephone in your bedroom is a good move.
The other point that's important to bear in mind about 'flu, is that while the acute phase of the illness lasts about a week, full recovery is likely to take about a month. Recovery will be quite slow and you will be fatigued for a while. At this stage having easy to prepare food on hand will be very important as it's now that you need to eat to rebuild your strength. It's also important to have food about you consider 'comfort food' and to eat little and often. It's difficult to know what the situation will be like, but it's probably going to be important that recovering people don't rush back to work immediately.
Once you've thought about yourself, consider family members and friends - who is there you would be offering to care for if they were ill? If you're planning on having someone else look after you, if you're ill, how would you get to their home once you're unwell? [Bear in mind that travel restrictions are possible and it's possible these people would be ill at the same time as you] Are there local people you'd be offering to help out with fetching medicine and shopping? If you're likely to be caring for someone who lives some distance away from you, do you have arrangements with your employer to work from home? to work flexi time? to take unpaid leave at short notice?
Also consider your stance on masks/gloves/hand hygiene. If you're going to wear surgical masks, you need to wear them properly, which means replacing them when they get damp - get a big boxful and then read some instructions on how to use them. I'm basically of the opinion that as they don't protect against particle transmission they're not overly helpful and it's bad science to wear them [possibly except in so far as seeing strangers wearing face masks encourages social distancing]. Unless we reach a stage where there is a risk of violence for not wearing them, I am not intending to go about the streets in a surgical mask. If I get involved in treating someone who isn't a family member, I will insist on being supplied with proper FFP3 respirators and disposible gowns etc. Currently, I tend towards thinking that if I'm caring for a family member I'm going to get ill eventually anyway, so I might as well just keep going with the caring, get ill and hope that by the time I'm ill, they've sufficiently recovered to look after me.
If your hands are dirty soap and water is better at cleaning them than alcohol based hand gel.
The beginning of a pandemic is probably going to be a good time to get ill, when there are still lots of hospital beds available and medical staff haven't been exhausted by months of caring for influenza patients. If you're ill at the beginning (and ill enough to require hospital admission), you're going to get very good care and much better care than will be available in the middle of the pandemic.